


Lange Nicht Gesehen

by Motionallyperpetual



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:39:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Motionallyperpetual/pseuds/Motionallyperpetual
Summary: He never really left.





	Lange Nicht Gesehen

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an 8 am bio lecture with three hours of sleep.  
> Go easy on me. Danke.

She sees him everywhere.

She sees him sitting on watch at the top of the gate. His gaze alternates between a steady, concentrated sweep of the landscape on the lookout for movement, or head tipped back towards the sky, face relaxed and eyes closed as he feels the intensity of the noon sun on his face, his hair sticking to his forehead from sweat, a pink color creeping up on his cheeks. Or when she walks backs to the house after one last perimeter check around the walls before she resigns herself to bed, she looks up and sees him, walking down the empty street, back facing and barely illuminated by the moons scarce light. Slowly, one foot in front of the other he shuffles down the street, head hanging lazily low with his hands resting in the front pockets of frayed jeans. He never turns around, but sometimes _she_ just has to. She just has to do another perimeter check, or relieve someone on watch.

But when she finally walks into the house, she's met with him sitting indolently at the top of the stairs, peering down at her with a playful smirk resting on his lips. 

Sure, she could pointedly avoid looking. Avert her eyes, walk briskly in another direction with her head stubbornly forward, never looking back. But he ~~was~~ is beautiful. He is clever and caring and _good_. He is her _little boy._ How could she not stare at him? How could she willfully turn her head and close her eyes, and forget her little boy, all that he was and what he had become? Sure, she could turn her head. Turn her head and imagine his playful smirk drooping into a frown, head leaning against the wall in resigned distress as he watched her avoid him, watched her try and forget him. Not totally, of course, but just enough to where the only times she'd remember him is when she had to remember, by Rick or otherwise.

**No**. She will stare. And stare, and stare, and _stare_. And when he wasn't on watch or walking the roads, or around the house, she would go to kiss her little girl goodnight, look into her eyes, and she would see him there, too.


End file.
